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So I finished the initial download of 400mb and then download the patches which totaled 200mb. While waiting I went on youtube to view some of the gameplay videos. They were quite interesting but what I was truly surprised by was the comments. Countless remarks were made about the quality of the game, and normally I ignore this trash but it was interesting just how many people hated it. Feeling slightly apprehensive I waited for the patches to finish downloading. Once they were done I started up the game.

I was first met with the normal log-in screen in the form of a skeleton sitting on a large throne, I'm not sure quite who he is and what relevance he has to the game but just guessing I would think that he is some sort of boss, perhaps the end boss. I was quite amused by this because of the contrast to this comical, slightly ridiculous skeleton compared to WoW's Illidan.

After I had logged in I had to choose from a couple of servers none of which were in Australia so I just picked the most populated one which was hosting around 100 players. At this number I was suprised at the lack of players but most likely this was the downtime for most living in the US.

Next I had to choose what class my toon would be from a vast 3 options; ranger, fighter, and mage. I looked over them quickly and decided to go with the ranger as he had a big weapon that looked crazy, a quick messing around with his appearance and I entered the game.

The first thing I noticed was the large banner ad at the top of the screen advertising Play NC's other games such as Lineage 2 and Guild Wars, at first I was wondering why that was there and if it only appeared just as you logged in but I soon realized that it was there to stay. A player has to buy a membership to get rid of it as well as to access many other items in the game, which I figured was fair enough as it is a free mmorpg, but it still is piss annoying.

Turning my attention from the ads to the actual game I noticed that I was standing in a large opening dotted by various npcs. The surroundings were colourful, if slightly crude. I ran to the nearest ? npc which seemed almost exactly like the quest giving ? in WoW. I ran around for a bit just talking to various npcs and getting my first couple of 'kill x nasties.' It then hit me; this is Diablo. The inventory is the same, there are the same instance-like killing areas, and the toolbar and potions are the same. Hmm, will reserve judgment for later.